Here's what we know:
Quote:
- Titan will not be at Blizzcon this year.
- Blizzard trademarked the name "Mists of Pandaria" and used the format they would for an expansion.
- J. Allen Brack, the WoW Lead Producer, hinted that Pandas and the next expansion will be talked about at Blizzcon.
Quote:Q: "I have tons of questions about the next expansion but that's not something you can really talk about." A: "That sounds like something we may potentially be talking about at BlizzCon." Q: "Does it have to do with pandas?" A: "That sounds like something we may be talking about at BlizzCon." Source.
The following is my prediction of what will be announced this year:
Quote:
- WoW Expansion IV: Mists of Pandaria
- MoP will give a new class, most likely a spellcaster/healer, and Pandarens will be a neutral NPC race heavily involved in the story. Will likely take place in Pandaria and surrounding islands.
- Diablo III Release Date
- Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm release date/timeframe
- Blizzard's own Starcraft II DotA map's release date/timeframe
I know we've already done a lot of speculating in the other threads, but this is a good time to make any last solid guesses. Blizzcon starts this Friday, October 21 at 11:00 AM PDT.
For Blizzard's official schedule, click here.
For MMO-Champion's schedule with a countdown to events and automatically adjusted to your timezone, click here.
Remember: If it's about Blizzcon or something announced at Blizzcon, post it here! I'll be posting the news for WoW, Diablo 3, and SC2 as it comes in. I won't be posting about the tournament, most likely. I just can't watch that stuff.
Ok, here's what we now know:
Mists of Pandaria is the new expansion.
- Level cap: 90
- New Race: Pandaren. You will decide at some point between Alliance or Horde.
- New Class: Monk
- New Continent: Pandaria
- Pet Battle System (Pokemon.)
- New Talent System
- "Challenge Mode Dungeons"
- PvE Scenarios
There will not be a central villain, instead it will focus on the Alliance/Horde conflict.
In addition, Blizzard has launched a new subscription option called the Annual Pass. It's basically an agreement saying you are going to pay for twelve months' worth of WoW time, but you get to choose the payment plan (monthly, every 3 months, etc.). It's just an agreement that you will pay for 12 months. Doing it gets you benefits like Diablo 3 for free, guaranteed access to the Mists of Pandaria Beta and an in-game mount in WoW.
MoP Trailer:
The official Mists of Pandaria page is up.
More details are beginning to go up of MoP:
Quote:
What is Mists of Pandaria?
Pandaria
Lore of Pandaria
Pandaren starting zone
Creatures of Pandaria
The Jade Forest
Valley of the Four Winds
- The goal is to combine new gameplay with most fun parts of the past.
- The plan is to get people back into the world, instead of having players roam around Stormwind and Orgrimmar all the time once they reach max level.
- Developers want you to do what you want to do to progress your character. They really want you to feel like you have a menu of content where you can pick whatever you want to do, and you shouldn't feel forced to do something to progress your character. For example, daily quests will reward you with valor points but it will still be faster if you raid of course.
- Character builds are going to be entirely revamped. Talents were still too cookie cutter, so the developers want to give players more choices in their talents.
Pandaria
- 5 New leveling zones to explore
- Single, unified continent
- Influenced by Asian landscapes
- AH, Bank, and Central Questing Hub
- No flying until max level
- There's 5 leveling zones but they are very large zones, and you won't have your flying mount.
Lore of Pandaria
- A long, storied history.
- Magically hidden since The Sundering
- A new land to explore....
- Pandaria was discovered during the cataclysm, a naval battle between horde and alliance was taking place close to it.
Pandaren starting zone
- It's a turtle! It left Pandaria 10 000 years ago and never came back. Pandarens who wanted to discover the world left on that turtle.
- Story focused with simple mechanics
- Cross faction, choose Horde/Alliance at level 10.
Creatures of Pandaria
- The Jinyu are fish-like creatures and will be in a wide number of zones.
- The Hozu are a monkey-like race, they stand up on their legs and can walk around. They play tons of pranks on the local pandarens and are also in a lot of zones.
- Verming are ... new kobolds, they kinda look like evil bunnies.
- Mantid: Whole raids and dungeons around this race. Insect race that has been there since the beginning of ages. They have been seperated by a giant wall. They are starting to go crazy and are going through the wall
- Mogu: Ancient race, original race on pandaria. The mogu want the island back from the pandaren, they are really mad. You will see them in dungeons.
- Sha: Manifestation of the evil energies that flow through the earth. If there is any sort of battle these guys pop up.
The Jade Forest
- This is where Alliance and Horde will be landing. The horde is washing up on the north side, the alliance on the south side. There will be one unified start zone and Alliance/Horde will end up meeting up in the middle.
- Lush rainforests and stone spires
- The Alliance will try to become friend with the Hozu, and the Horde with the Jinyu and will try to turn them against each other.
- Temple of the Jade Serpent will be the dungeon of this zone. It will be your 85-86 Dungeon, it has been taken over by Sha
Valley of the Four Winds
- Two zones for the price of one! This zone is huge, the whole north side of the zone is pandaren farmlands, the south is a coastal jungle.
- You will get to choose between the north side and the south side when you arrive. You can go back and switch side if you want the other quests.
- The dungeon of this zone is Stormstout Brewery.
- This is where you will have your first interaction with the Mantids, they broke through the wall and are now attacking pandarens villages.
When I get some free time I'll transplant all of this into a new thread we can sticky.
Edited, Oct 21st 2011 4:35pm by IDrownFish
